Settlements in Israel Pledge to Observe Religious Traditions

Three veteran smallholders settlements were disclosed today to have pledged their members to an intensification of Jewish observance of Kashruth and erecting of a Sukkah.

The pledge was made by leaders of the settlements during a visit of Sephardic Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Nissim to Kfar Vitkin, Kfar Merhavia and Kfar Yehoshua. The leaders asked for regular visits by rabbis to foster traditional Jewish values in the moshavim.

Rabbi Nissim said his tour of Israel during Elul, the Jewish month preceding the start of the Jewish New Year, resulted in similar indications of interest in tradition in other settlements. He said that at each of his visits, he urged his hosts to take spiritual inventory before the High Holy Days and he stressed the need to provide a traditional Jewish education for the children of the nominally non-observant settlements.

The Chief Rabbi said his argument was that such an education was necessary to allow the individual to make a real choice at maturity of the kind of Jewish life he wanted to follow. At each visit Chief Rabbi Nissim affixed a mezuzah to school doors and addressed pupils on the values of Judaism.